As the money rolls in, and the points are added up, it still might not be enough to clinch it. Plus I’ll need more points than the winner of the other table of five who were playing at the same time.

We escape into the fresh air and, after some tense calculations, I’m declared the third heat winner. This could be it. I could be a step closer to going to China.

So it’s back on the bus for the final round, and this time I’m up against just two others – 35-year-old Matt Miller, a curator from Godalming, and 27-year-old mum Gill Brown.

There’s lots of auctions and it’s clear to see that Gill has a game plan. She’s obviously been practising and I immediately know that I’m out of my depth. By the halfway mark, she’s absolutely trouncing both me and Matt.

She says her tactic is ‘Brown Town’ – inspired by her surname. And hotels on the browns pay off, as both Matt and I land on them, frequently.

Still I hang on in there, determined not to face the shame of going bankrupt, and manage to walk away with a couple of thousand points, but that pales into insignificance with Gill’s score of 6,171. Matt finishes third.

Gill’s husband Adam is waiting for her outside (she beat him in the first round) and we emerge from our tense battle to a round of applause.

Gill is announced as the south-east winner and will play against the winners of the 11 other stops the Monopoly bus has made across the UK and Ireland at the final in the Shard in London on Sunday, July 19.

Whoever wins that game will be whisked off to the world championships in Macau, in China, on September 7.

I’m jealous, and the inner child in me wants to sulk, but it’s okay because Mr Monopoly hands me a limited edition 80th anniversary edition of Monopoly as a runner-up prize and I’m delighted to see it includes a cat playing piece.

I may not have made it to the final, but I take solace in the fact that I’m officially the second best Monopoly player in the south east of England.

Then it dawns on me. That must’ve been the real reason my teenage step-brothers stopped playing with me all those years ago, they just couldn’t cope with the humiliation of being beaten by a 10-year-old girl.

How the speed die works

The game was made quicker by the introduction of a third die called a speed die.

This extra one has the numbers one, two and three on it, as well as a bus logo and two Mr Monopoly logos.

If you throw the bus and say, a three and a four, you can choose to move three, four, or seven squares – handy to avoid expensive rent claims. If you get Mr Monopoly you move according to the dice but then you automatically go to the next unsold property, giving you more chances to snap up places. If there’s nothing left for sale, you move to the next property not owned by you – so more rent payments.

If you roll the numbers, they get added to the other two numbers, meaning you go round the board quicker, and if you land a triple, the absolute luckiest thing to do, you can pick which square on the board you go to.

The determined girl, from Ascot, registered to play in the children’s heats last November and she’d been building up to Saturday’s qualifier ever since.

Her family had been forced to play hundreds of games and they even stayed in the nearby Premier Inn in Port Solent so she could face the game fresh-faced.

But for poor Abi, an unlucky twist of fate saw one of the registered competitors drop out and her big brother Owen step in at the last minute.

Thirteen-year-old Owen had obviously benefited from all the practice and much to Abi’s disgust, he won – beating his own little sister and making her cry.

After some deliberation, negotiation and ice-cream, Owen decided to forfeit his place in the final meaning the person in second place, Abi, would take his place.

The final was a tense hour, with Abi determined not to lose for a second time that day, and I joined the Jordans to wait for the result.

The game ended, points were totted up, and Abi was declared the winner.

A cheer was raised in the car park, with dad Richard, 46, beaming from ear-to-ear and mum Rhuan, 46, fighting back tears of pride and joy. The Jordans will all now be off to London for the UK and Ireland finals.

Owen’s selfless act certainly touched a few hearts that day. But the humble teenager said: ‘I’m just pleased that I won a Monopoly mug.’